I’m not a thief, but if I was one I would go for the gold. I won’t steal petty or
stupid things.
I remember when I was a kid, we had this cool inflatable kiddy pool...one morning
we woke up and it was missing. Someone stole it! Why the kiddy pool?
How did the transport it? By foot? On a pick-up?Probably my lunch from the work fridge.
I had somebody steal a very old very crappy radar dector from my car once. I had been meaning to replace it for a month or so. It was worth 5$ tops at pawn shop.
Twice in the first 2 weeks we lived here (last August), someone stole the gun-like sprayer hose attachment from our garden hose. What the hell? Now we remove it each time we use the hose and bring it inside.
hrh
Back in Tanzania we had our trashcans stolen. Twice. This involves either climbing a wall or forcing your way through a thick thorny hedge, and then hoping the guards and the dogs aren’t awake so you won’t get arrested or bitten.
Well, it wasn’t stolen from me personally, but my brother dressed as Saddam Hussein for Halloween once, and somebody stole the costume out of my mom’s car a few days later. I’ve always wondered what they wanted it for.
I bought two Canon scanners (the ultra-slim USB-powered ones) for my office; a month later, somebody strolled in and walked out with one; if he comes back, he can have the other one; it’s the worst computer product I’ve ever bought.
My freshman year in college, my roommate stole a back of Hershey’s Miniatures from me. Why? He misplaced his cigarettes and thought a friend of mine who had visited the day before took them, so he took my candy (from a care package from home – he went in and took one item from it) to get back at me. Wasn’t that bright, though … his always-open foot locker was mysteriously closed and locked when I discovered them missing, and a quick question to him resulted in a shouted accusation about my friend and his cigarettes. Finally did get those candies back. lol.
I had a roommate a few years back who had a leaking bottle of bleech and left a drip trail on the apartment carpet. I withheld his portion of the security deposit equal to the amount the apartment folks were going to charge me for the damage when he moved out. I even gave him the estimate from the apartment owners so he knew I wasn’t charging him anything extra. His argument was that the apartment owners would replace the carpet when I moved out anyway since I had been there five years, but I proved to him that wasn’t the case.
His response to not getting his full deposit back? He went into my closet and STOLE two BB guns (handgun and rifle) when I was at work. I didn’t find out for a few months which I guess was the point, but of all the things he could have stolen, I would say the combined value of these old pieces of crap was maybe $20.
When I was in college, I had a so-so bicycle with el cheapo crappy accessories (bike pump, rack, bungees, front nylon carry bag with a hole in the bottom). Somebody stole all the crap off my bike. In the report (hey, I was pissed) I had a hard time coming up with a replacement value because the stuff that was stolen was such shit. (Yeah, I know, replacement value means brand-new, but I didn’t replace anything until I got a new bike. It was all just so petty!)
I used to work in a sporting goods store that had rough cedar siding on the outside and deep overhangs on the gable ends, which were a haven for bats. They slept up there all day, didn’t bother anyone, and except for the poop weren’t really a problem for anyone. Every year, in late summer there would be a one or two week period in which a dozen or so bats would die every night and need to be cleaned off the front deck every morning. We assumed that it was a normal generational die off of the old folks to make room for the youngn’s. Every morning, the store owner and manager would go out, pick up the dead bats and put them in one of our store bags to set near one of the outside trash cans for the maintenance guy to pick up when he emptied the trash. He wanted them seperate from the other trash… No, we didn’t ask why. We watched an elderly gentleman “steal” one of the bags of dead bats one day. He walked by it two or three times, looking at the bag and looking around to see if anyone was looking at him. After a while, he oh-so-casually leaned on the deck rail for a few minutes, right next to the bag of dead bats. Then he picked it up, strolled out to his car, put the bag in his trunk and drove away. I would love to have seen his face…
A friend of mine had a bucket of barf stolen from under her car at the Mall of America. Her son got carsick a lot so they would keep a bucket in the car for him to puke into. They left the bucket under the car while they were in shopping, and when they came out it was gone.
I once had the headlight stolen from my bike.
My guess is that the thing was worth a whole of US$5.00 at that point. The thief (or thieves) didn’t even bother to try for the plastic thing that holds the light on the handlebars, either, which means that the light is nothing more than a rather stubby and awkward flashlight.
I mean, WTH??
We used to have a concrete flowerpot in the shape of an elephant outside, on our porch when I was young. One morning, it was gone.
It was fucking heavy, and a PLANTER. ???
Anyway, we got a new one. 10 years and this one hasn’t been stolen. Her name is Evelyn, same as the last one.
I had two of those huge, heavy planters taken off my porch one night about six months ago.
The stupidest, though, was this old briefcase I found in a pile of trash. It was made of some kind of heavy, blue cardboard and was all warped from being rained on, and it had metal latches. When I saw it in the pile of trash I thought, “I wonder how long it will take to get this stolen from my truck?” and put it in the (open) bed of my pickup.
Every few days I’d come out from somewhere and find it had been unlatched to see what was in it, and after about three months someone finally took the piece of crap. Incredible.
Oh, and when I was in college someone broke into my house and stole my answering machine.
I was working at my dad’s auto wrecking yard. Due to some county maintainance work, I had to park my old Dodge truck around the corner from the yard instead in front. About 10 am I was removing a part for someone when my dad called for me. I went up front and he told me some guy wanted to know how much we would give him a tailgate to a Dodge truck, he needed to sell it to buy diapers and formula for his baby.
Just about then the kid came in the yard carrying a Dodge truck tailgate, the one off my truck! I told the kid I would give him $25 for it if it fit my truck. I took the tailgate and headed to where I parked my truck. When he saw where I was heading with it he took off running. The same kid had the balls to walk into another wrecking yard a few months later while I was standing behind the counter talking to the owner. He didn’t even recognize me till I asked him if he had any Dodge trucks tailgates.
A pumpkin at Hallowe’en
In 5th grade I had a red Mickey Mouse lunchbox. My mom made me write my name on it, but all I could find was a red marker, so I used that. It got stolen a few weeks later, and I could claim it back after I pointed out the faintly visible name written on the bottom. It probably never would have gotten stolen if my name was visible.
When my best friend used to live with me, two packages of birth control came up missing. I know I didn’t misplace them because I kept all my sex stuff in my underwear drawer. She also was on the pill. I was more annoyed that she took them and didn’t ask. I would have given her one package if she asked. But when I found out she took 2, I was more upset that I was out of birth control for the month. I never confronted her though.
This didn’t happen to me, but my aunt.
She lives out in the country, a good 10 miles from the nearest town and there’s a fair bit of walking involved between her house and her nearest neighbors. Someone broke into her house one night and stole a jar of spare change that she had in her kitchen. The jar contained a grand total of around $10.
Car break-in #1:
Mono cassette player with Islam prayer pronounciation tape in it.
They left the ROM for cable descramblers worth thousands on black market.
Car break-in #2:
All my just washed clothes while living at a homeless shelter
(BTW, I’m 6’ 5" so I was on the lookout for urban pioneer with trailing trouser legs.)
and the TV remote, not the TV, just the remote.